The dreaded "HOW LONG" in english

NADA

Ya di ya di ya. I know there is no length but I was disturbed to rea in exam and career guide that at least four pages are expected for the 70 mark compartive and if you opt for the 40 and 30 it is about 3 and 2 pages respectively. That to me is crazy. What do you think. Also what about the essay on paper 1 and the single text and the poetry. Sorry if this has already been discussed but I can't find the thread.

Rockerette

i'd do 4 pages easily on comparative... about 1200 words + i'd say.
essay on paper one, i'd be pushing 5 pages usually..


but im a bit of a nerd and can never stop writing in english.. hhmmm

Garret

Rockerette wrote:

i'd do 4 pages easily on comparative... about 1200 words + i'd say.
essay on paper one, i'd be pushing 5 pages usually..


but im a bit of a nerd and can never stop writing in english.. hhmmm

holy fcuk

2-3 pages does me grand

Aoibheann

For comparative, we've always been told 6 pages, and the very least 5. King Lear, the single text, about 5 I guess and poetry is 4-5, though I find I can write so much more on poetry, did 7 in my mock - Longley is easy to answer on!

Dagnir Glaurung

I do:

3 page essay
3 page poetry
3 page Single text
4 page comparative

Couldn't be bothered writing more, 'tisn't needed.

Rockerette

i dont mean to sound cliche'd or anything, but theres no point writing 5 or 6 or whatever amount of pages if its sh!te like.. cos well... quality not quantaty and all that..



2 pages though.. i dunno, waaay to short for me to develop any main points..



it just depends on what you have to say really

GrumPy

I'd get four pages of BS out passed my mocks, so happy enough.

Fast_Mover

rememeber its quality rather than quantity!!:)

DonaldDuck

Remember..4 pages of normal refil pad is about the same as 6 exam paper pages because of the huge margins and wide lines...So writing 6 pages of normal refil pad is crazy...And useless usually

I do 3-4 pages on everything except comparative which is 4-5 pages

For paper 1...I aim for 4+ pages,but that varies on the type of answer I'm doing(Generally short stories will be slightly longer than most other types)

I wouldn't dream of writing 2 pages..I'd be shot dead by my teacher if I handed up anything done in 2 pages except for the part on P1

exiot

I couldnt care less as I have gone through the points I need to make. All my essays vary on different subjects. What alot of people do is talk about something and waffle on, straying away from the question asked. You don't gain marks for this and your wasting time.

As long as I feel what I have written is valid and informative, and answers the question to the furthest degree, I will be happy.

Rob30888

For the essay, 750 words is the recommended, which isn't too bad really. They also say 200 words for the part b of the comprehensions.


Don't worry about how much you write in paper 2, just concentrate on getting it finished

Garret

Rob30888 wrote:

For the essay, 750 words is the recommended, which isn't too bad really. They also say 200 words for the part b of the comprehensions.


Don't worry about how much you write in paper 2, just concentrate on getting it finished

200 words, thats like less than a fools cap page

Rockerette

recommended by who? just wondering


for the part B, i do about... 500 words i'd say...


my english teacher (who has been correcting L cert english exams for yeeeears...) has always told us 1000+ for essays..

d4gurl

4 A4 pages comparative
4-5 King Lear
5-6 Poetry
4-5 Essay (paper one)
1.5-2 Question B
Thats what I do anywat!

Rob30888

Rockerette wrote:

recommended by who? just wondering


for the part B, i do about... 500 words i'd say...


my english teacher (who has been correcting L cert english exams for yeeeears...) has always told us 1000+ for essays..

Grinds teachers

DonaldDuck

Garret wrote:

200 words, thats like less than a fools cap page

200words not including words like "the,a,and,we" etc

NADA

No. For section B it is definalely recommened at 150-200 words. 500 is an insane waste an can cost you marks in my opinion.

Azureus

4-6 essay
5-6 poetry
3-5 comparitive
4-6 single text
and whatever i answer the question in the b part P1, usually 2-2.5...

dr.barbie

i wrote 21 pages in my paper 2 mock- had the hugest blister ever!

shane0312

Azureus wrote:

4-6 essay
5-6 poetry
3-5 comparitive
4-6 single text
and whatever i answer the question in the b part P1, usually 2-2.5...

Why does everyone seem to be doing loads for the poetry, its worth 50 marks and some people here are saying they do the same for poetry as the essay.Even though the essay is worth 100 marks! I think in general if you 5-6 pages its much easier to start waffling and go of the point. You lose marks big time for that.

Essay 4-5
King Lear 3-3.5
Poetry 2.5-3
Comparative 3.5-4

Rockerette

NADA wrote:

No. For section B it is definalely recommened at 150-200 words. 500 is an insane waste an can cost you marks in my opinion.

i disagree.

as i said, my english teacher has been marking exams for yeeeears..
the last one i handed up to him (2 full pages, at leat 450/500 words) got 50..

i trust this man more than anyone else when it comes to english



If what you're writing is complete bollox, and you insist on rambling on for 2 pages, or 8 pages for the composition or whatever, well then you'll get marked down.. but if its relevant, focused, developed it shouldnt matter..



think of the PCLM marking method!

Rockerette

seriously, how can you write a letter to someone, and make some actual decent points in it in 150/200 words???!

thats like 1 paragraph for me...

Garret

Rockerette wrote:

seriously, how can you write a letter to someone, and make some actual decent points in it in 150/200 words???!

thats like 1 paragraph for me...

maybe some of us have a more direct style than yourself

Nada & I's teacher is also very experienced

Rockerette

that question is worth 50 marks (same as poetry, 1/2 amount of composition) i think it deserves a hell of a lot more than 150 words.



but you go ahead with your "direct style" if you're confident enough.. i was just voicing my own opinion and advice i have been given..






its a very good question to pick up marks, and i plan to exploit that as much as i can...

Dagnir Glaurung

Rockerette wrote:

that question is worth 50 marks (same as poetry, 1/2 amount of composition) i think it deserves a hell of a lot more than 150 words.



but you go ahead with your "direct style" if you're confident enough.. i was just voicing my own opinion and advice i have been given..






its a very good question to pick up marks, and i plan to exploit that as much as i can...

200 words makes perfect sense to me. One of them is usually a letter to a newspaper which are about 200 words usually. But I write 2 pages anyway There's so much time on PI that there isn't a lot of point writing only 200 words.

Pugwash

I am a firm believer in the fact that you should think in terms of paragraphs as opposed to pages when judging length.

Eg. single text: intro; point1;point2;point3;point4;point5;conclusion

You'll find it is much more digestible to think in this manner and gaping bits of page are much less daunting if you have an idea of what you are going to say/what you have left to say.

Once an adequate ammount of points are on paper and you feel comfortable with the content, that shoud be enough.

At this stage you'll notice that all these rigid barometers layed down in terms of pages have been satisfied with alot less stress.

Rockerette

Dagnir Glaurung wrote:

200 words makes perfect sense to me.

twice the amount of marks for the essay.. (50:100 marks)

meaning writing 400 words for an essay??! (200:400 words)


think about it like that..




i write 200 words for 15 mark questions on the compositions....




but sure, we'll all disagree over this.. and it really doesnt matter for sh!t what anyone else does!

NADA

Well one year they actually specified 150/200 words for section B and it was still 50 marks then. See the edco exam papers.

IbanezFreak

shane0312 wrote:

Why does everyone seem to be doing loads for the poetry, its worth 50 marks and some people here are saying they do the same for poetry as the essay.Even though the essay is worth 100 marks! I think in general if you 5-6 pages its much easier to start waffling and go of the point. You lose marks big time for that.

Essay 4-5
King Lear 3-3.5
Poetry 2.5-3
Comparative 3.5-4

Gotta agree with ya there. Theres no point in writing loads for the poetry, its has the lowest points on the paper. just get the necessary info down and concentrate on writing a good single text question or the comparative.

NADA

I solved the problem for the single text. The guy on http://www.examsupport.ie in one of the previews says that the single text question should be about 3 pages. That means about a half a page more for the 70 mark question and and 2.5 for the poetry.

Johnner111

I usually go one A4 to the ten minutes in an english exam on paper 2 - paper one - require a bit more thinking but i suppose more or less the same.